I last brought this topic up yesterday in “IKEA ditches Russia; in similar fashion, companies should also ditch CBC”.
Add Nokia Siemens Networks to those companies that, for example, support the state-owned, socialism-reliant CBC? Or cut them a break on the basis that they helped the Iranian government supply cellphones to citizens.
Nokia, based in Finland, and Siemens, based in Germany, formed a partnership called Nokia Siemens, which in 2008 sold technology to the government of Iran, which, allegedly, may now help the terrorism-supporting, Islamofascist, tyrannical Iranian mullahs thwart the freedom uprising there.
Well golly: who could have figured Islamofascist, tyrannical Iranian mullahs would do anything untoward with technology like this? (And how could Russia have known that selling nuclear materials to oil-rich Iran could result in the terrorism-supporting, Islamofascist tyrannical Iranian mullahs in building nuclear weapons to fulfill their stated desire to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and threaten the hated West?)
Wikipedia:
In 2008 Nokia Siemens Networks provided Iran’s monopoly telecom company with technology that allowed it to intercept the internet communications of its citizens to an unprecedented degree. The technology allowed it to use ‘deep packet inspection’ to read and even change the content of everything from “emails and internet phone calls to images and messages on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter”. The technology “enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes” expert insiders told the Wall Street Journal. During the post-election protests in Iran in June 2009, Iran’s internet access was reported to have slowed to less than a tenth of its normal speeds, and experts suspected this was due to the use of the interception technology.
Read this Wall Street Journal writeup:
Iran’s Web Spying Aided By Western Technology
European Gear Used in Vast Effort to Monitor Communications…The restricted functionality monitoring center provided by Nokia Siemens Networks in Iran cannot provide data monitoring, internet monitoring, deep packet inspection, international call monitoring or speech recognition. Therefore, contrary to speculation in the media, the technology supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks cannot be used for the monitoring or censorship of internet traffic. …
Nokia Siemens Networks refutes this all, entirely.
Canucks might have heard of Nokia Siemens:
In June 2009 Nokia Siemens Networks announced it will buy Canada-based Nortel Networks’ wireless units. With this purchase Nokia Siemens Networks plans to strengthen their position in the LTE market and improve their foothold in North America.
…Canada’s government-owned export credit agency, Export Development Canada, would support the transaction with a $300 million loan commitment, Nokia Siemens said.
Nortel’s customers, including Bell — Canada’s leading telecommunications company— welcomed the deal which Nokia Siemens said would ensure the continuation of Nortel’s research and development sector.
“As Nortel’s largest customer in Canada, Bell supports Nokia Siemens’ plan to continue to foster Nortel’s long history of research and development in Canada,” said Stephen Howe, spokesman for Bell Mobility.
On balance, I would contend that companies selling to terrorism-supporting, Islamofascist, tyrannical Iranian mullahs is rarely if ever going to be a winning strategy for anyone but the terrorism-supporting, Islamofascist, tyrannical Iranian mullahs. And personally, I couldn’t in all good conscience do biz with these nutbars, and then look myself in the mirror. American companies aren’t even allowed to do business with Iran (although the uber Obama-supporting owners of NBC, General Electric, has done just that, though they contend they don’t anymore.)
Revolutions and massive democratic change have throughout history relied on pure people power with the possible addition of outside help from the Ronald Reagans, Margaret Thatchers, and Pope John Paul IIs of the world, possibly also with a little raw firepower to counteract the government oppressors. Without the addition of Nokia cellphones. This one can too, especially when even as Iranians get the word out to the outside world via Nokias, people like the President Obamas of the world watch and listen intently, and then proceed to go ahead and largely sit on their thumbs, refuse to “meddle”, equivocate about “carbon footprints” and flapdoodle about “hope” and “change” —in America, of all places.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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